Sunday, July 5, 2015

Local polymer clay artist,
Claire Fairweather, is showcasing her first large mosaic artwork at the July exhibition
at Beach Bistro. Titled ‘Watching the sunrise over Rangitoto’, this local scene
is made up of about 6,935 handmade round polymer clay tiles. The whole artwork
measures 102cm wide by 40cm high and forms the centrepiece of the exhibition.

“It turned out to be a labour of love but I am
proud of the end result,” says Claire “I had no idea how long it would take to
complete. In the end I spent over 150 hours and finished it just in time for
the exhibition. This is a view that I love and I have enjoyed every minute of
the making of this artwork”.

Claire won a ‘Best in Sculpture’
at the 2014 International Polymer Clay Awards for a three part sculpture titled
‘Spring Trio’, which was sold at a previous exhibition at Beach last year.
Since then she has been developing her own unique style of contemporary mosaic
art, making her own round mosaic tiles from polymer clay.

‘Mosaics, Jewellery &
More’ is a mixed exhibition that has been put on by five members of the
Auckland Polymer Clay Guild - Claire, Joy, Kesten, Nicky & Sue. Polymer
clay is a very versatile creative medium, which is shown in this exhibition by
the diverse range of work from the five different artists. There is jewellery,
mirrors, mosaic art and sculpture on show throughout the month of July at Beach
Bistro, 1A Beach Front Lane, Browns Bay, open from 7am – 7pm, seven days a
week.

Here it is, my first large 'dot mosaic' artwork. It is made up of about 6,935 tiles and took
over 150 hours to complete. Each tile has been handmade, from polymer clay, and
glued in place on the canvas before being grouted with coloured acrylic modelling paste.

The story behind the picture: One morning when I left home early, I saw this
beautiful sunrise over Rangitoto from the beach reserve at Browns Bay [Auckland, New Zealand]. I
immediately thought this would make a great picture, as I love this view, and I
will so miss it when we relocate. I took some photos on another day, for
reference purposes, particularly to show the outline of the vegetation that I
planned to use in the foreground of the picture. There happened to be this
couple, sat on the edge of the reserve, in one of my photos, and so I decided
to include them in this picture for added interest.

Here is another photo taken with different lighting, although the colour is not so true, it shows the textural surface of the tiles better.

Counting the tiles: I knew someone would ask me how many tiles were used to create this picture, and I was curious myself, so I spent several hours this weekend counting them. Here is my counting copy.
﻿

Counting the tiles

I was only going to do it once, so I wrote on a photocopy (two A3 sheets joined together), numbering each tile as I went, just in case I lost count. The thick black lines mark blocks of 500. I am fairly sure I counted them all and, give or take a couple, there were 6,935.